


All for Nothing

by HazyViolet



Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Denial of Feelings, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gay Characters, Gay Male Character, M/M, Male Friendship, Romantic Friendship, fluffy boyfriends, gay ship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 06:25:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HazyViolet/pseuds/HazyViolet
Summary: Looking back, Louis couldn’t help but feel his childhood best friend, Marlon, had betrayed him and had more than enough reasons to confide in him about the incident with the twins. Looking back further, after all of these years of survival, had Marlon kept up a strong front only to cower immediately in the face of his mistakes? Everything the two had pulled through-all the memories they shared-was it all for nothing?





	1. Reminiscing

All the surviving students of Ericson were gathered around Marlon and Brody’s graves, recalling the events that lead to the current situation on the previous night.  
Violet came forward to voice her respects after doing so for Brody. Exhaling deeply, she began to speak.

“Marlon… was….” Everyone was silent. Violent turned away with a look of tired resignation.

“I can’t,” she said, turning to the rest of the students. “A-after… after what he did with Brody an-and the twins, I-“ Violet abruptly was cut off.  
“You were always mean to Brody! You never even liked her!” Willy protested angrily.

To this, Violet said nothing, simply looking down with a shake of her head, her arms wrapped around herself and hunched over slightly in a desperate attempt to find comfort.  
“I can’t,” she repeated, walking back towards the school building.  
“Tch,” Mitch snarled at her as she walked by, “bitch.”

“Dude. Don’t,” Louis scorned Mitch with a tone of warning. “Nobody needs to be picking fights, right now,” he muttered, gaze shifting miserably back to his best friend’s makeshift grave.

Looking back, Louis couldn’t help but feel his childhood best friend, Marlon, had betrayed him and had more than enough reasons to confide in him about the incident with the twins. Looking back further, after all of these years of survival, had Marlon kept up a strong front only to cower immediately in the face of his mistakes? Everything the two had pulled through-all the memories they shared-was it all for nothing?

They were best friends-one could argue they were more. Except no one could, because only Louis and Marlon knew of their little moments together-it’s what the latter had wanted. It was not as though Marlon was ashamed-although it had certainly felt that way, at first-of what Louis felt for him and eventually, in turn, what he felt for Louis, but rather that ‘the dating between a leader and one of the ‘team’ members only ever leads to disaster and distraction.’

Of course Louis understood that-he wasn’t that blinded by his emotions, but he wasn’t going to pretend it didn’t hurt him like a slap to the face, either. Naturally, the team goofball had then responded by putting up his normal light-hearted demeanor and laughing it off, giving Marlon a rough ‘bro slap’ to the shoulder, causing Marlon to frown slightly before Louis forcibly changed the subject. Things were awkward between the two from then on.

About five days later, Marlon was assigning positions for the group-who would take first shift guarding the perimeter and where. Food had been scarce lately due to Marlon pulling back the safe zone border, causing frustration for both the former students and Marlon, who felt constant stress with his inability to keep everyone fed. He was not in any mood to argue and his ‘leader instinct’ voice which presented itself clearly left no room for debate. Whenever Louis and Marlon interacted now, it was when the latter was in ‘leader mode,’ as Louis called it, giving orders and planning out runs for supplies and food. Other than that, Marlon took notice of how Louis began to discreetly avoid him. Instead of annoyingly dorky jokes and puns in the wrong times and gentle playful elbows to the shoulder, Marlon received no attention from his best friend-not even teasing or awkward attempts to strike up a conversation during times of tension.

Whenever Marlon attempted to speak with his best friend about his behavior, Louis had always feigned oblivion and had overdone it with the joyous and light-hearted act. There were always excuses, one after another.

“Sorry man, gotta practice playin’ my keys, know what I’m sayin’?” Louis said, walking backwards and pointing finger guns at his leader before turning around and walking off. Marlon had frowned at this excuse-he knew his best friend was a naturally happy-go-lucky and kind person who couldn’t lie for his life, but was Louis even trying at that moment? He always only knew how to play two songs on that old piano and two songs only-which he had long mastered, by now. 

“Can’t. Now that my shift’s done, I’m gonna take a nap. Don’t hold your breath, dude!” Marlon narrowed his eyes at that one. Not being able to bother at the time as it was then his turn to keep watch, he decided he’d confront him the next day-which, shocker, didn’t go Marlon’s way, either.

It was morning, and he students had all rounded up in the Principal’s office to discuss and plan the next supply run and Marlon had abruptly but subtly called out to his best friend and ask him to stay behind while tossing his baseball up in the air repeatedly. Luckily, Louis paused at the doorway and turned to acknowledge Marlon, but only to justify why he wouldn’t stay.

“Sorry, man. Gotta go talk to Aasim and Willy about resetting the traps.” Louis said with a smile.  
Bullshit. Louis was hard working when he needed to be, but he preferred the hands on ‘clobbering walker heads with a severed chair leg covered in nails’ lifestyle as opposed to actually helping out around their little settlement.

“Look, I don’t know what-” Marlon started with irritation before being cut off.  
“I really, really gotta go, Marlon. In a bit, ‘kay?” Was his reply before hurriedly walking out. The baseball the archer was previously fidgeting with in his hands abruptly popped.

No. Marlon finally had the time to do whatever he wanted for the next two hours. He was seizing this opportunity by the throat.

Finding Aasim in the courtyard and settled down on the staircase with his eyes down on the stick he was sharpening to tie onto a log trap, Marlon was both furious and unsurprised to not find Louis there with him.

“Aasim.” Marlon stated arms crossed.  
“What’s up?” Aasim mumbled, not looking up from his stick.

“Louis told me he was gonna help you with the traps,” Marlon sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose, “clearly he was lying,” he grunted.

Aasim let out a noise of amusement. “Yeah, like Louis could ‘help’… Guy can’t even hold a knife without cutting himself so he opts for a chair leg with nails in it.” Brushing off the wood shavings from the spike he finished carving, he set it aside with the other finished ones and started on another stick.

Marlon ran his hand through his blond hair, beginning to lose is patience. He needed to talk to Louis. Now. “Whatever, look-do you have any idea where he might be?” 

“The hell should I know? This place isn’t big, look around for him if you need him. ‘M kinda busy.”

“Later,” Marlon turned around and walked off to enter the school again. Aasim merely hummed in response.

The more Marlon thought about it, the angrier he became. Louis has never lied to them in all their time of knowing each other. He was always his honest, dorky, ridiculous self. Even after the world’s population rotted away, Louis still came through-still remained the way he was. Louis was the group’s rock-he kept the air light and happy, even if everyone rolled their eyes whenever he made a lame sex joke and awfully wiggled his eyebrows right after. Louis was everyone’s-Marlon’s-little light that kept the morale of everyone up. 

The blond shook his head, kicking a small pebble up the hall. That was when music filled the air. Music from a piano. Louis’ piano. An inevitable small smile of endearment broke across Marlon’s face. Of course.

When the archer entered the doorway to the “piano room, where the magic takes place,” as Louis had always called it, he made the mistake of leaning against the doorframe, causing the floorboards to groan, which was the exact moment the music abruptly ceased.


	2. The Talk

Tan fingers froze above the black and white keys of the piano. Louis began to panic. This wasn’t how it was supposed to go. This wasn’t his routine. He’d make an excuse, avoid Marlon, and in doing so continue to evade awkwardness. Didn’t Marlon no that? Of course not. How would he? Louis hasn’t spoken to him. Of course this was inevitable-it’s Marlon, after all. Best friend, leader-they had a good thing going. Best friends. Friends. Just friends, but of course Louis had to go open his big mouth and throw it all away.

‘Well, no avoiding it, now,’ Louis thought bitterly. To get out of this one, he couldn’t even be subtle. He’d have to claim urgent nausea and run for the hills. Which, Louis thought, he wasn’t THAT desperate to get out of Marlon’s sight. Such an act would probably make his best friend feel even worse-and he felt guilty enough with how much he’d been running from Marlon. He doesn’t miss the looks of severe disappointment which soon evolved into expressions of sadness when he makes up an excuse right to Marlon’s face-the way the blond’s shoulders dropped, the irritated sighs.

Louis let out a sigh of his own before quickly putting on his typical friendly and mischievous demeanor. Swinging his legs over the other side of the chair, he turned around, resting his elbow on the corner of the piano.

“Y’know, if I knew you liked to watch me so much, I would’ve gotten you a camera by now-a picture’ll last much longer, trust me. I don’t mind. I am quite a sight.”

“Louis-“

“Oh no, I get it. Like I said, I’m a total catch. I’d stare at me, too.”

“Louis.”

“Plus, who wouldn’t admire my fantastic musical tal-“

“Louis!” Irritation has etched it’s way into Marlon’s voice. He loved Louis-really, he did. He trusted that dork with his life. He was Marlon’s best friend-who like with everyone else, he had limited patience for.

Louis’ voice came to a halt, mouth shut and eyes blinking.

Doing his signature ‘I’m stressed’ gesture, Marlon pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.

“Look, I get that you’re avoiding me or, whatever, but it needs to stop. Your fooling around is going to get someone killed. You need to get your ass in gear and think about everyone else. If you’re not focused and trying your absolute best while on watch or out hunting-if you can’t be mature enough to suck it up when working with me out there, there are going to be serious issues. I’m tired of your excuses, Louis.”

Anger boiled up in the pianist’s stomach. Of course. It’s always work with him. Always survival. Of course Marlon would make this about ‘working together’ and ‘focusing properly as a group.’ Why would mullet-head ever ask how Louis was feeling? Why would he ever talk about them? Couldn’t Marlon just loosen up a little? Didn’t he understand that survival was worth nothing without living? Without fun? Without happiness, jokes, and laughter? What about all those times when Marlon did relaxed-when they all played cards together or ate together or did anything that isn’t pressuring them to survive together?

Louis finally let his playful expression drop into somewhat of a sneer with a shake of the head. “Figures,” he snarled, turning back around to face the piano.

“”Figures?” The hell’s that supposed to mean?” Marlon narrowed his eyes with a frown, crossing his arms.

“It means nothing. Forget it. Why should you care, anyway? It’s all about ‘teamwork’ and ‘focus’ with you.”

“Uh, yeah! It kind of always has to be about ‘focus’ and ‘teamwork!’” Marlon shot back, heavily exaggerating on the quotation signals with his fingers.

Louis finally whipped around. “Oh yeah? What about living?”

“We are living! Thanks to focus and teamwork!”

“No, we’re surviving! There’s a difference, Marlon! I don’t want to just hunt, eat, guard, and wake up the next day only to do the same damn thing all over again! I wanna live! I wanna be happy and actually do things with my spare time! You could afford to do the same, too.”

“So this is about what I think it is.”

“It’s-why does this have to be-“ Louis threw his hands up in the air in frustration.

“Louis, it’s not- look, dude. I told you. We don’t have-“

“The time?” Louis finished for him. “I’ve heard it all before, Marlon. But what about those times we spend together as a group? Or when we’re not keeping watch? You have fun, then! I think you can afford to spare a little time! If you just don’t appreciate me in that way, just tell me. Don’t come up with an excuse. I deserve better.” Louis scoffed.

“That is the reason! That, and, I just don’t-“

“You don’t what?”

“I don’t know!” Marlon gritted through his teeth before repeating, “I don’t know… If anything were to happen, we’d need to get out of bed completely prepared immediately. We can’t afford distractions. We need to be ready for anything at any time, or we die.”

“And what about Violet and Minnie!? They were always together, and it never ‘compromised’ anything! So you’re going to tell me otherwise?” Louis declared.

Marlon’s fists clenched so hard blood began to sprout from the palms of his hands. “And look what happened. One’s gone, and the other is left behind.”

Louis’ face fell, and he studied Marlon’s unreadable expression. “Is that…? Are you serious…?”

“Louis,” Marlon warned, looking away.

“Is that the real reason? You’re scared, is that it? If one of us dies, the other’ll be miserable and alone?” Louis pressed.

“Not the only reason. There are other factors-like the ones I brought up before. Also, comparing Minnie and Vi to us isn’t-we’re completely different people! Everyone’s different!”

“So how would you know what we’ll be like if you don’t try?”

“Because I don’t… want to try, Lou.”

“And why not?” Louis said with narrowed eyes and a raised eyebrow.

“I just… can’t. I can’t… like… guys like that,” Marlon murmured.

Louis gave his best friend a look of unamusement. “What- you just told me that one of the reasons was because one would die and the other wou-“

“I know what I said!” Marlon snapped.

Louis crossed his arms.

Marlon dragged his hand down his face. “They’re both reasons. I’m the leader. I can’t have emotions like that distracting me. Everyone here relies on me. To lead them. Feed them, and… I can’t…”  
He couldn’t finish.

Louis’s gaze softened. “Look. Your dad was an asshole, man. We all know that, but the world’s changed big time since then. He’s dead. All of our families probably are. You’re right, you’re the leader- our leader. You are your own person, dude. You can’t let him dictate your actions, anymore.”

Closing his eyes and furrowing his eyebrows, the archer sighed as he subconsciously touched his arm-the same arm his father would grab him by so hardly it’d bruise. That was before all this-before the apocalypse, before Ericson.

“You were fine with Vi and Minnie- you were fine with Aasim when he had a crush on- never mind. Look, point is, why’re you cool with them but not with yourself?”

“We’re not having this conversation right now, Lou.”

“Then when!?”

“Never!”

The two then became engaged in a vicious glaring contest, before they were interrupted.

“WALKER HERD!”

**Author's Note:**

> FUN FACT: Aasim was originally planned to be bisexual.  
> Hey, all! I noticed there weren’t enough MarLouis fanfics out there, so I decided to make one, myself. This is my first Fanfic. Respectful criticism is appreciated!


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